A Sensitive Kind of Murder (A Kate Jasper Mystery)

by Girdner, Jaqueline

  “But at the funeral—” I began, suddenly remembering.

  Laura shook her head. “I know, I know. ‘Invisible disabilities.’ I don’t know if Steve Junior figured it out unconsciously, or if I left some sort of clue. But he’s always known something was wrong with me. He just didn’t know what.”

  “Oh.”

  Laura looked at me as if she’d forgotten I was there for a moment, or forgotten the circumstances that had brought us here. Finally, she straightened her shoulders and went on.

  “So, Steve forgot about writing the story until the men’s group meeting when everyone talked about the worst thing they’d done. Then Steve remembered the fabulous story he’d left unwritten. He told me he needed to write it, that it would help others who suffered from dyslexia. He said that it would get him over his writers’ block. Steve…” Her hand searched her pocket, and she used her scarf to blot her eyes. Were those tears? Yes, they were. Steve had hurt Laura. Had he ever realized what a big mistake it was to have hurt this woman?

  “Steve,” Laura went on. “Never a clear thought in his head. Did he think dyslexics were actually going to read his article? He was the same way about my growing up wealthy—he thought it must have been so great. Well, it wasn’t. I was raised by a series of nannies. Some of them liked me, some didn’t. One dropped me on my head all the time. Another one hit me. I got everything…except love. He never understood.” Her voice dropped to a low pitch. “I asked him to hold off for a month on the article. Then I made my big mistake: I told him he couldn’t write the article, that if he did, people would figure out I’d hired someone to take the bar exam for me. That’s fraud. Do you think I could stay in office if anyone found out? And Steve was offended! Offended! After I’d spent more than half my life married to him, he said he couldn’t believe I had done something so unethical. He told me he wasn’t sure he could remain married to me. He acted like I was slime. It wasn’t good enough for him that I’ve done all the right things, taken the right stands, helped the state, raised our son. One mistake, and he hated me.”

  Yes, Steve had hurt her. Laura blotted her eyes again. “And I knew that if he left me, he’d write the article, that he’d probably include the part about the bar exam. What did he care if he ruined my career, ruined his son’s life? He’d be over his oh-so-important writers’ block. But he said he’d keep his promise, that he’d give me a month to think about ‘helping’ him with his article. The s.o.b. was going to leave me and then destroy me. I couldn’t let him do that, so I planned his murder. I’m good at planning—”

  “But why Wayne’s car?” I asked. The words seemed to tumble out of my mouth without thought.

  “To discredit Wayne. I thought Steve might have told Wayne he was going to write an article about me. I figured no one would listen to Wayne if he was the prime suspect…but then you had to show up to alibi him! Because of you, Wayne was never the main suspect.” Laura’s face actually looked angry now, her brows low and her lips thin. “And then you two had to keep sticking your noses in. I know you talked to Steve’s so-called friends. I know you know he caused one suicide. You had to see the parallel. You knew it was me!”

  “No,” I insisted. “We didn’t—”

  “And Isaac, with his goddamn dyslexia obsession. He once told me he knew I was dyslexic. He thought it was a great joke. I knew he would eventually figure out why I killed Steve—”

  I opened my mouth to tell her once more that Wayne and I hadn’t known, but the doorbell rang before any words came out.

  The doorbell?

  Laura lifted the gun and pointed it my way. She took a couple of steps toward me. She was only a few feet away from me now. I heard the front door open. Then I realized that Laura had left the door unlocked when she’d come in.

  “Yoohoo!” Dorothy called out. Laura looked behind her. I took one long step, shortening the distance between us. I lifted my knee. Then I circled my foot in a lotus kick, meant to disable an assailant’s kidney, this time modifying it so that I knocked the gun from Laura’s hand. Laura’s mouth stretched and she let out a piercing scream.

  I jumped in place. I hadn’t expected her to scream. But I also hadn’t expected C. C, who wobbled precariously on Laura’s shoulder, her claws embedded in Laura’s sweater and the flesh beneath it.

  I kicked the gun behind Laura, taking a second to watch it skid down the carpet of the hallway. I would thank C. C. later.

  Laura turned, looking for the gun even as C. C. leapt from her shoulder and slunk away. I grabbed her wrist from the side and tried to force it up behind her back, but Laura squirmed away from my awkward grip. Laura advanced on me, and I shoved her, much as I had shoved Van the night before. Laura flew backward…toward the gun. Damn. I ran after her and shoved again, losing my balance. My tai chi teacher hadn’t taught me to fight someone who wasn’t attacking me first. Now I saw why—it didn’t work. Laura hadn’t thrown any momentum my way, so I had nothing to use against her. Still, I regained my balance in time to kick the gun further down the hallway.

  I had to keep Laura Summers from that gun. Talk, I thought; if only I could get her talking.

  “But how could you kill your own husband?” I demanded.

  It worked.

  “A widow is just as electable as a wife; maybe more so,” she told me. But then she turned her head, her eyes searching for the gun. “All that sympathy helps. Divorcees don’t get sympathy.” She could talk and attack at the same time. I should have known.

  She turned away from me, toward the gun. We don’t get much practice shoving people from behind in tai chi, either, but I did it anyway. She swung around so that she was facing me once more.

  “Forget it,” she declared, her voice low. “You’re dead.”

  Then I saw my Aunt Dorothy over Laura’s shoulder.

  “You’re as bad as Steve—”

  My aunt trotted toward the gun, picked it up, and pointed it at Laura Summers’ head. Dorothy moved her gun hand, and something clicked. I didn’t care what. Maybe Dorothy had cocked the gun. I didn’t know. All that mattered to me was that the gun was no longer in Laura’s hand.

  Laura must have heard the click, too. She whipped around to face Dorothy. But my aunt’s grip on the gun didn’t waver; she kept it pointed at Assemblywoman Summers’ head.

  “You!” Laura screamed.

  “Go ahead,” Dorothy told Laura, her voice no longer sounding like my sweet aunt’s. She spoke each word with ugly menace. “Make…my…day.”

  - Twenty-Four -

  It was Wednesday, and the members of the Heartlink Men’s Support Group, their significant others, and a couple of my significant others were having their last meeting in Carl Russo’s garden, mingling in the sun and shade. The smell of barbecue floated over from the yard next door, as did the sound of rap music. Carl looked good in his Hawaiian shirt, better than he looked in a suit. And he was proudly showing his roses to Garrett, Ted, and Helen. Garrett bent over to smell a crimson rose and sighed with pleasure. Jerry and I looked at each other and joined Garrett in the sigh. But our sighs were of relief because Garrett actually looked happy.

  Ted Kimmochi, however, still looked moody, his eyes turned to the clouds instead of the roses. But somehow, he managed to look content in his moodiness. Helen Herrick didn’t look entirely happy, but she looked satisfied and peaceful as she fingered the petal of a lavender bloom.

  “Closure,” Jerry mouthed.

  I nodded.

  This was the good life, rap music, barbecue smells, and all. I grabbed Wayne’s hand and squeezed as the sun beat down on the tops of our heads.

  Meanwhile, Janet McKinnon-Kimmochi stood a few feet away, attempting to instruct Mike, Niki, and Zora in the finer elements of language.

  “You don’t call anyone a wiener-head…” she tried, shaking her finger.

  Felix and Aunt Dorothy guffawed along with the kids. For some reason, they’d become great friends once Laura Summers was behind bars. I shivered in the sun, remem
bering again why we were all gathered—to speak of Laura Summers.

  “So,” Jerry asked, as if he’d caught my thought. “What happened after your aunt got the gun?”

  Aunt Dorothy turned our way. “It wasn’t just any gun,” she told him. “It was a Colt .38 special. Splendid, sturdy—”

  “Aunt Dorothy!” I yelped.

  “Well, aren’t you glad I know about guns, Katie?” my aunt teased. She tilted her face, the curlicues on her head looking like little goat horns. And I’d thought this woman was old.

  She strode my way and wrapped me in a hug, only letting me go so that I could continue telling the story of her bravery.

  “Laura jumped at my aunt—” I began.

  “So I shot in the direction of her feet,” Dorothy tossed off nonchalantly. “My, you should have seen her face change then—”

  “Especially when you said, ‘Next time, I go higher.’” I giggled. I couldn’t help it. It seemed funny now, though it certainly hadn’t at the time. And I wondered if we’d ever be able to replace the carpet where the police had pulled it up to find the bullet lodged in the wood below.

  “And then my Katie got Laura in some kind of choke hold, and we tied her to a chair,” my aunt went on.

  “Finally, we called the police,” I ended.

  I could feel Wayne squirming beside me, feeling guilty for having left me alone. I thought maybe it was time to change the subject, but Dorothy wasn’t finished.

  “Even tied up, Laura kept talking,” my aunt remembered. “It was as if her mouth couldn’t stop her thoughts from flowing out, even when the police came.” She shook her head.

  Dorothy probably would have just kept silent and asked for an attorney. Of course, my aunt wasn’t capable of murder…I hoped.

  “Did she confess?” Garrett asked from his position near the roses.

  “Boy, did she—” I began, but Felix had to have his say.

  “Not only did she tell every friggin’ thing she’d done from age one,” he interrupted, “but that potato-brain Wooster got corroborating evidence. Laura’s sister’s mouth couldn’t stop, either. Blathered all about Laura’s big-deal dyslexia, the schools with the greasy palms, the whole enchilada—”

  “‘Told you it was the wife. Hell’s bells, just look at her,’” my aunt mimicked the captain all too accurately.

  I shook my head, putting my hand over my grinning mouth because this was serious. One look at Helen Herrick was all it took to remind me.

  “I hadn’t told Laura yet that we’d stopped investigating,” I admitted.

  Wayne put his arm around me and kissed my cheek, and the garden was beautiful again. I didn’t want to talk any more. Of course, Felix was more than happy to take over.

  “Ms. Bigshot Laura Summers has been dyslexic since day uno,” he began. “Like it was a friggin’ life-stopper or something.” I wanted to say that it was a life-stopper for her, but I kept my mouth shut. “Mummy and Daddy had big bucks, so no one ever had a clue. She went to hoity-toity ‘experimental schools’ from kindergarten through law school, with the experiment being verbal exams, at least for lucky Laura. And Big Daddy slipped all the educational institutions major money for endowments. But then Laura got to the state bar, and even Big Daddy didn’t know whose palm to grease there. So, he bought his daughter a proxy to take the bar for her.” Felix paused, making sure he had his audience. Then he went on.

  “From the moment Laura passed the bar, she was Ms. Bigshot Attorney. She didn’t have to read. She didn’t have to write. She owned a stable of geeks to do her work for her. She dictated everything that she signed.” He shook his head. “Un-friggin’-believable.”

  “She really was a good person…as an assemblywoman,” I murmured. I shrugged my shoulders, wondering why I’d felt the need to defend her. “She and Steve believed in the same causes. And as humans, she and Steve were a matched set—good with causes, but they didn’t care much about people. She asked Steve for a month to think about writing the article, but she was sure he would just leave her and write it anyway.”

  “And he hurt her,” my aunt sighed, no longer smiling.

  Yes, he hurt her. I remembered Laura’s tears for the husband she had killed.

  “Do you think he would have?” Jerry asked.

  “Would have what?” I said, shaken from my reverie.

  “Written the article? Left her?”

  “We’ll never know. But Laura was so paranoid about it, so ashamed of her dyslexia, that she was sure he would.”

  “I don’t think Steve would have,” Wayne declared, loyal to the end.

  “I hope not,” I told him, turning and looking into his vulnerable eyes. “But she thought we knew.” I turned back, facing the others. “She tried to run Wayne over, and when she failed, she came back to kill us both. And she was smart; when my aunt whisked her out of the house in disguise to avoid the reporters that day, I should have noticed how good she was. Laura had already used someone else’s car to come to our house. It never occurred to me it might be a habit.”

  “She thought Isaac knew she killed Steve,” Helen put in.

  I nodded, my heart nodding in tandem with my head for Helen’s loss, a loss none of us were speaking of directly.

  “I’m sure Isaac didn’t know,” Helen whispered.

  For a moment, I glimpsed Isaac’s weathered face nodding, too, from behind black-rimmed glasses, but then his ghost was gone. I just wished it could have been as easy for Helen to let him go.

  “Laura thought she had a month to kill Steve,” Wayne took over the narrative. “She stole Kate’s spare key to the Jaguar at the potluck, then waited for the group meeting and walked from the beach to where the car was parked. She wore a scarf wrapped around her hips, and a wig and dark glasses. Then she took the scarf, wrapped it around her head, and drove my car into Steve—”

  “Oh, my God,” Janet muttered, shaking her head.

  “And now she’s got some nutso defense,” Felix said, jumping back into the act. “Some diddly-doo about an abusive nanny who dumped her on her friggin’ head when she was a baby. Hey, dyslexia, murder, all little neurological problems—”

  “Is it true?” Carl Russo asked seriously.

  “No one knows but Oz, man,” Felix replied.

  “After she’d hit Steve, she dumped the car, dropped the scarf back around her hips, and jogged down the beach in her wig and dark glasses, looking like any other jogger,” Wayne finished up. “Got in her own car, pulled off the wig and dark glasses, and drove away.”

  “She was very proud of her planning,” I said, remembering.

  “Her logic was convoluted by fear,” Helen Herrick objected. “She should have been more worried about getting caught killing two men than about using a proxy for the bar.”

  I nodded. That logic would work for any of us. Still, were Laura’s neurological wires really so crossed that her logic was different? Or was the hurt just too great to bear?

  “Made sense to her,” Wayne growled. “Wondered why she kept sidling up to me, hugging me all the time.” His face flushed. “Steve and I were close. She was afraid Steve might have given me a clue.”

  “And then she tried to run you over when the hugs didn’t work,” Aunt Dorothy chirped. “My, she was confused.”

  “But why was it such a big deal that she didn’t take the bar?” Mike Russo asked.

  “Might be criminal fraud,” Wayne answered. “Could have gone to jail.”

  “She certainly couldn’t have practiced law,” Garrett pointed out.

  “Much less stayed in office,” Ted added.

  “She friggin’ panicked—” Felix began.

  Something clicked behind me in the yard. I spun around, irrationally expecting to see Laura Summers cocking a gun.

  But the click was only the latch to the garden gate opening, and the only person coming our way was Van Eisner.

  He slunk in, his eyes downcast.

  “Hey, man,” he muttered to Wayne. “Sorry.”r />
  Wayne shrugged, his face granite.

  “I’m going into rehab,” Van whispered.

  Wayne’s features softened into flesh again. He smiled and shook Van’s hand. Someone started clapping—maybe it was Garrett—and then everyone was clapping.

  “I have an announcement, too,” Ted broke in, once the clapping had died down. “Thanks to Felix, I’ve finally found meaning in my life.”

  “Brother Ingenio?” I demanded.

  He nodded eagerly. “Jim Morrison has…talked to me.”

  Janet stopped lecturing her kids and walked over to stand by Ted, her face proud. Couples, I thought. You never know.

  Felix looked at me and laughed. I shut my hanging-wide-open mouth.

  “How about a friggin’ spiritual candidate for Summers’ assembly seat?” he suggested, standing straighter.

  “Brother Ingenio?” I demanded again.

  “Nah, forget him,” Felix shot back. “How about me?”

  This time, it was Ted who started the clapping. People clapping for Felix? This worried me. I opened my mouth to object, but someone else was shouting over the clapping. It was my Aunt Dorothy.

  “You’re all invited to Kate and Wayne’s formal wedding ceremony!” she sang out. “Will you all come?”

  Now they were seriously clapping—and whooping and hollering. And I was seriously worried.

  Wayne grabbed my hand and tugged.

  “We have to wash our hair that day!” he roared.

  Dorothy put her head back, frowned for a moment, and then grinned.